Brian Reader and the Diamond Wheezers: The Geriatric Jewel Thieves | 177

Brian Reader made his name as “The Guv’nor” in the 1960s and 70s by pulling off daring, Ocean’s Eleven-style heists that turned him into a tabloid sensation. By the 2010s, his glory days were long gone – but when the lure of one final big score proved irresistible, Reader and a crew of aging criminals plotted one last job over Easter weekend in 2015. But the heist that was meant to cement their legend instead turned into a tabloid spectacle – and the downfall of a man who couldn’t leave his past behind. Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletter Listen to Scamfluencers on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/scamfluencers/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sarah Hagi?

  Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

• 0:14Sarah Hagi?

  Sachi, you are a woman of many skills. Yep. You're welcome. What role would you take in like an Ocean's Eleven type of heist? Like, what would your role be in the group, do you think? Honey pot. Oh, my god. Just a sparkling smile to distract a security guard. Oh, boys. Like that. Yeah, I'm sure you would not be like, hey, wait a second. Ew. No, I would love to do it. Well, I would be kind of equally useless. I think my job would be more of like a personality hire, good vibe, to motivate my fellow criminals. If you and I found one smart person, we would probably do crime. It's a good thing you and I are both too dumb to do it on our own. Yeah.

• 0:59Sarah Hagi?

  Well, I'm about to tell you the story of a heist that made international headlines, not just because it was cinematic as hell, but because it was pulled off by the last people you'd ever expect: cranky old men.

• 1:17Sarah Hagi?

  It's a Thursday evening in April of 2015, the start of Easter weekend. Brian Reader is riding the bus towards London's Hatton Garden, a commercial district at the heart of the UK's diamond industry. Brian is a 76-year-old British man with a long face and thin white hair. He's wearing a dashing outfit, complete with a colorful striped scarf and striped socks. And he has big plans for the long weekend. When the bus stops, Brian gets off and walks over to one of the most iconic buildings in the district: the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit. It's a secure storage facility used by some local jewelers. In the basement is a vault containing gold, diamonds, and jewels worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

• 2:04Sarah Hagi?

  Brian joins a group of older gentlemen gathered near the building. Some are dressed in high-visibility vests and look like city workers. They pass Brian a hard hat, and he slips it on. This is step one in their plan. They wait for one of Brian's friends already inside to make his move. Brian's about to check his watch when, pop! Right on cue, one of the building's fire exits opens from the inside. Brian and his buddies wheeling construction equipment and shut the door behind them. It's go time. They approach the vault and start drilling through the concrete wall that protects it. And as you may have guessed, this isn't your average group of retirees. Many of these men have decades of experience committing high-stakes robberies.

• 2:48Sarah Hagi?

  Until recently, most of them were ready to wind down and live quietly, including Brian, who had promised to leave crime behind almost three decades ago.

• 2:59Sarah Hagi?

  But a few years ago, Brian's beloved wife passed away. His own health is failing, and he can't stop reminiscing about the good old days. At 76, Brian feels like he has nothing more to lose. So he's rallied together this ragtag team of aging ex-cons with a proposition: Why not come out of retirement for one last job?

• 3:22Scaachi Koul?

  Oh, boy. Brian's getting the team back together. I am watching this movie.

• 3:28Sarah Hagi?

  Brian and his friends have spent the last few years plotting this heist in a local pub, and now it's actually happening. He feels that familiar thrill as he watches the drill bore into the concrete wall. But a lot has changed since Brian left these schemes behind in the 80s. And now he's betting everything that he and his crew can pull this off and walk away not just with a retirement fund, but with their freedom.

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• 4:47Sarah Hagi?

  From Wondery, I'm Sarah Haggie. And I'm Sachi Cole. And this is Scamfluencers.

• 5:01Sarah Hagi?

  In the UK, the 60s through the 80s was a golden era for career criminals. These years were marked by organized heists and high-profile robberies, all planned out by seasoned thieves and obsessed over by tabloid media. But as security systems and surveillance technology improved, these Ocean's Eleven-style crimes all but disappeared. But in the 2010s, a crew of aging criminals decided they weren't done yet. Armed with decades of experience and a shared goal, they plotted one last job. If they could outsmart modern technology and stay ahead of the law, they might just walk away with millions and ride off into the sunset.

• 5:43Sarah Hagi?

  This is Ryan Reader and the Diamond Weasers, the geriatric jewel thieves.

• 5:51Sarah Hagi?

  To get Brian's full origin story, we have to go back to 1950 to a courtroom in London. The thief on trial is a four-and-a-half-foot-tall, 11-year-old boy. Yes, it's Brian. He's got a mop of brown hair and wide, blue eyes, and he remains stone-faced as his verdict is read. Brian's found guilty of robbing five stores and sentenced to 12 months of conditional discharge. So he's free to go, but with a warning to stay out of trouble because next time, they won't be so forgiving. This is Brian's first conviction, and his crime wasn't out of passion, but necessity. He was stealing cans of tinned fruit to eat. Brian and his three younger siblings are growing up in poverty in South London.

• 6:36Sarah Hagi?

  His father's a truck driver with a history of criminal behavior, including stealing from shipping containers at his job. So it's not a total shock that Brian becomes a thief himself. And when his father suddenly abandons them a few years later, Brian, as the eldest sibling, feels the weight of providing for the rest of his family. He leaves school as a teenager to work odd jobs around town, including at a butcher shop and working for the British Railway. But in 1958, Brian finds himself back in London's criminal court. And this time, he's 18, an adult in the eyes of the law. His crimes are more serious, too. He's being tried for burglary and for inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent.

• 7:21Sarah Hagi?

  While we don't know the details of the actual robbery, we do know his spoils were about £5 from a tea shop, which is equal to £150 today. He's found guilty, but once again, the judge decides to be lenient and spares him from jail time.

• 7:38Scaachi Koul?

  I feel like we have a lot of these stories, Sarah, on this show where somebody is forced into adulthood way too early. And it kind of sets them off of this brutal path of having to trick the system because it's the only way they're going to survive.

• 7:52Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, and I mean, clearly, they're realizing at a very early age, life is not fair.

• 7:57Scaachi Koul?

  Yes.

• 7:58Sarah Hagi?

  This conviction is a real wake-up call for Brian. In that year, he really kicks things into shape when he signs up for national service with the British military. He spends a year working as an engineer and learns how to handle a gun and work with a team on a shared goal. In 1963, when Brian is 24 years old, he marries a bookmaker's assistant named Lynn. Brian's been working as a truck driver, just like his dad, but he and Lynn are about to start a family, and that is expensive. Brian's continued to dabble with petty crime and theft in recent years, and he's been fined for possessing weapons and stolen goods. Now, with kids on the way, he decides it's time to lean in.

• 8:41Sarah Hagi?

  He might as well commit to committing crimes, and he can use the skills the Army gave him to launch a proper criminal career. This time around, Brian is determined to approach his life of crime with a bit more sophistication. He loves scheming and problem-solving, skills that come in handy when you want to become a criminal mastermind. And it's worth remembering that around this time, the culture of organized crime in London is downright glamorous. Criminal gangs are constantly in the tabloids, often getting the better of law enforcement. Brian is set on joining their ranks. And Brian knows just who to turn to for help establishing himself, an old friend he met after his time in the Army

• 9:26Sarah Hagi?

  named Bill Barrett, a career criminal a decade older than Brian. Bill is happy to give his friend a crash course on crime. Bill teaches Brian how to pick locks, crack safes, and leave a crime scene without getting caught. And by the mid-1960s, when Brian is still in his 20s, he's built an entourage that includes a safe cracker, a locksmith, and an alarm expert. The crowd he runs with avoids violence at all costs, mainly targets institutions, views lockpicking and breaking and entering as a rarefied skill, and loves their families above all else. It's still crime, but with a strict code of honor. With his new skills and friends,

• 10:10Sarah Hagi?

  Brian starts pulling off the kinds of crimes that could really bankroll his life: heists.

• 10:18Scaachi Koul?

  I know I shouldn't find crime cool. It's in movies for a reason. This is the coolest kind of crime. A heist is cool, and I don't make the rules, and I'm not proud of it, but this is cool.

• 10:29Sarah Hagi?

  Well, you know, if the government built more community...

• 10:33Scaachi Koul?

  If there had been a community center where Brian grew up, this would not have happened.

• 10:36Sarah Hagi?

  You know, he wouldn't have to turn to heists to build community. So, you know, think about that.

• 10:43Scaachi Koul?

  Think about that.

• 10:45Sarah Hagi?

  But at home, Brian is just dad. In his free time, he goes camping with his wife and two kids, and even holds some regular jobs to throw the cops off his trail. He ran a jewelry wholesaler and sold fine art. But behind the scenes, Brian is involved in some seriously ambitious heists. In the early 70s, when Brian is 32, the police start to suspect that he's part of a recent massive heist in London. In that job, a crew stole somewhere between half a million and three million pounds' worth of goods from a bank vault. But Brian was never arrested. To this day, some people believe he actually masterminded the heist,

• 11:27Sarah Hagi?

  but there's never been enough evidence to confirm it. At one point in the early 80s, Brian is arrested on suspicion of several robberies, but he's got two young kids and no interest in going to jail. So when he's out on bail, Brian and Lynn take their family and move to the south of Spain, because Britain and Spain don't have an extradition treaty at this time. Zaji, take a look at a picture of Brian from around this time. Could you please describe it?

• 11:58Scaachi Koul?

  He's very beach-boys. He's wearing a little bathing suit with his two kids, and they all look very happy, and he's tanned. It looks like he's having a great time.

• 12:07Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, he looks like regular guy, just a dad. Well, after a couple of years of crisscrossing the continent, Lynn is homesick. She just wants to be a regular housewife, to tend to a garden and raise her kids in peace. So they decide to return to the UK. Brian is acquitted of the robbery, but serves about a year in prison for skipping bail. Once he gets out, he goes back to selling jewelry, until he gets a call from one of his old criminal buddies who just pulled off a crime so brazen it made headlines for decades.

• 12:47Sarah Hagi?

  It's an early morning in November of 1983 at a warehouse near Heathrow Airport. While Brian was away on a police-evading vacation, a different gang of British criminals is about to carry out their own heist. Tony Black, a warehouse security guard, runs across the parking lot to meet his coworkers, who look annoyed. His shift was supposed to start 10 minutes ago, but he slept through his alarm. On a regular day, this might not be such a big deal, but today, every minute matters. Tony is a thin man with a long, angular face and a giant, bushy mustache. He's basically the most 1983-looking man on Earth. He's been working as the inside man

• 13:31Sarah Hagi?

  for a gang of burglars who plan to carry out a heist at this very warehouse. Tony's never been involved in anything like this before, but he was intrigued when the gang approached him, particularly since his wife's brother is one of the guys masterminding the heist.

• 13:46Scaachi Koul?

  I guess helping your brother-in-law rob your place of work is one way of getting your in-laws to like you. Listen. Oh, no. Three, two, one, divorce.

• 14:00Scaachi Koul?

  That's not what I was gonna say for once! Okay, okay, go on.

• 14:06Scaachi Koul?

  Listen, some of us are trying to do some guerrilla marketing over here.

• 14:11Scaachi Koul?

  What I was gonna say is that if I ever did get remarried, one condition would be that anything my family asks of him, including crime, needs to be done. He has to do it, no questions asked. It's the opposite of divorce, if anything. Yes, and because of double jeopardy laws. Yeah, because of double jeopardy! You can't get tried. Which is a rule I definitely understand in a movie I've seen several times.

• 14:36Scaachi Koul?

  Neither of us can get in trouble.

• 14:38Sarah Hagi?

  Well, Tony told the robbers that the warehouse holds cash and valuables worth up to three million pounds. And he gave them information in advance about the security system and the number of guards. Today, he has one last job: letting them into the building. He walks to a warehouse window and raises a handkerchief to his face. At his signal, six men jump out of a blue van wearing ski masks and wielding guns. The robbers hold up their guns and demand to be let into the building. Tony lets them in as planned. He watches his coworkers get their hands bound together with rope. To keep up the ruse, the burglars tie Tony up as well and mock threaten him. Then, one of the robbers

• 15:23Sarah Hagi?

  douses gasoline on the workers and pulls out a match, threatening to light it if the police show up. Tony tries to hide his alarm. Because while he knew the robbers were coming, this all feels way more real and terrifying than he expected.

• 15:40Scaachi Koul?

  Ooh, yeah, I don't like this part. Okay, the crime is no longer fun, and now it is scary, Sarah.

• 15:45Sarah Hagi?

  Yes. The robbers rifle through what's in the vault. But it's not what they expected. It's better. The robbers thought they'd get three million pounds' worth of valuables. Instead, they managed to nab three and a half tons of pure gold valued at 26 million pounds. In today's money, that's over 130 million dollars. The robbers load their van with so much gold that the weight of it makes the tires sag. Tony watches them drive away with more gold than they know what to do with. The story makes international headlines, and to this day, it's one of the most notorious criminal heists in history. Here's a clip from the CBC.

• 16:30Speaker 04

  In Britain, the world's biggest peacetime robbery ever.

• 16:33Speaker 05

  The giant robbery was fast and ruthless. Police are said to be still baffled by the speed and ease of the robbery. Police do not rule out the possibility that this mob may have organized a getaway just as efficient as the robbery itself.

• 16:49Sarah Hagi?

  Now that they've fled the warehouse, they'll need help from other criminals to move all this gold they've unexpectedly acquired. And when Brian catches wind of the heist, he'll be all too eager to lend a helping hand.

• 17:04Sarah Hagi?

  Not long after he's released from prison, Brian hears from Kenny Noe, a British career criminal who runs in his same circles. Kenny is like a cartoon crime boss. He lives in a massive mansion, where at some point, he let a pet lion roam the yard to intimidate people. His doorbell even plays a theme song from Goldfinger, which I feel like is something you would do.

• 17:30Sarah Hagi?

  I don't even think I know what the theme from Goldfinger is. If you knew it, you would do it. If you were a boss. Yeah, you're right. We can make that happen. Okay. We can make it happen. We'll talk later. All right. Well, Kenny wasn't a part of the Heathrow heist, but he's helping the robbers turn their unexpected gold haul into mountains of cash. And he could use a hand. Brian's excited to be part of such a huge crime and agrees to help get the gold melted down and dispersed so police can't trace it. Their plan actually works at first. But around early 1985, about a year after the heist, police become convinced that Kenny is involved somehow. An undercover officer is sent to his house to spy on him one night, and Brian happens to be there.

• 18:14Sarah Hagi?

  The two men are chatting when suddenly Kenny swears he sees someone lurking in his garden. So he grabs a knife and goes out to investigate. We don't know exactly what went down with the three men, but we do know the night ended with Kenny stabbing the undercover officer to death. And since Brian was present, they're both arrested and put on trial for murder.

• 18:41Sarah Hagi?

  Brian's been in the papers before for smaller crimes, but now his notoriety skyrockets. After Kenny murdered the policeman, Brian's photo was all over the tabloids, and this conviction only creates more buzz. Brian's family isn't spared either. His beloved wife Lynn is held in police custody for a time, and she's constantly getting mentioned and photographed in the papers. Here's a picture of Lynn at one of Brian's trials with their son.

• 19:11Scaachi Koul?

  You know, it's one thing to be the heist guy, but now it's like a murder charge, much scarier. I feel bad for his family. This photo of his wife, she just looks like she's just been dragged through the mud.

• 19:25Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, and you know, people think being married to a handsome criminal seems glamorous, but in an interview, Lynn says she's tired of constantly being on the run from the law and of being at the center of a media frenzy. Brian and Kenny are acquitted of the police officer's murder. Kenny claims he acted in self-defense, and Brian says he wasn't present when the stabbing occurred. But it's a huge scandal. And even though they're found not guilty of murder, police are still suspicious they had something to do with the gold heist, so they placed the men under constant surveillance. And when Brian and Kenny are spotted trading suspicious-looking packages, they finally get brought in.

• 20:11Sarah Hagi?

  About six months later, Brian is sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in handling the stolen gold from the Heathrow robbery. Brian started his criminal career to make his family's life easier, but he's gotten too swept up, and it's now only making their lives harder. So at age 47, Brian decides to live an honest life for the sake of his family. But in a few decades, life is going to kick Brian while he's down. And when he hears the siren song of crime calling to him again, he will not be able to resist.

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• 22:00Sarah Hagi?

  It's the early 2010s, about 25 years since Brian decided to give up crime. He's now in his 70s and is doing a crossword at his home in Kent, about an hour outside of London. Brian's always loved crossword puzzles, but lately, his heart isn't in it. Instead of filling out the right answers, he's writing his wife's name over and over in the little squares. After his release from prison in the 90s, Brian opened a used car dealership with his son and lived a quiet life alongside his beloved wife, Lynn. But two years ago, Lynn died from cancer, and Brian has been struggling without her.

• 22:45Scaachi Koul?

  Sarah, this is so sad. I know. I'm confident he didn't treat her right, but I'm so upset about this.

• 22:53Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's sad. It's really sad.

• 22:56Scaachi Koul?

  Okay.

• 22:56Sarah Hagi?

  And he spent so much time in prison that I'm sure it's like...

• 22:59Scaachi Koul?

  They lost so much time.

• 23:00Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's loaded. Well, Brian picks up a book about a famous diamond theft and takes mental notes as he reads. Because this isn't just light reading, it's research. Around this time, Brian's been using his free senior bus pass to visit London's historic Hatton Garden district, which is the center of the UK's diamond and jewelry trade. Throughout the early 1900s, heists and organized crime in Hatton Garden were rampant, but they slowed down as security tech improved and precious jewels were stowed in deposit boxes specifically designed to keep thieves away. Back when these deposit boxes were built in the 1940s, they were famously indestructible.

• 23:46Sarah Hagi?

  We actually have a news bulletin about the vault from 1949.

• 23:50Speaker 10

  To foil the thieves, Hatton Garden now has its own giant strongroom, available to every jewel merchant in the district. Constructed at a cost of more than £20,000, a two-foot-wide bomb-and-burglar-proof door, operated by a combination that has to be worked by at least two men, opens up a labyrinth of safes.

• 24:08Scaachi Koul?

  This is the classic part of a heist movie. They gotta get through the impenetrable door. But this is also the scariest part of a heist movie. What if they get trapped in the impenetrable door? But our lads love a puzzle, Sachi.

• 24:21Sarah Hagi?

  Brian spent decades working as a professional fence in the area, meaning he was moving and selling stolen goods. He knows the district well and has always thought it would be the perfect place for a heist. With modern equipment like high-tech drills and the right crew, Brian thinks he might be able to access the stowed-away goods. He also knows that the stuff down there is so valuable, it could easily fund the retirements of a lot of people, like his old heist buddies. Many of them are in debt or struggling with severe medical issues of their own. They could all use a hobby and the payout that comes with it, which is why he recently got the heist gang back together

• 25:05Sarah Hagi?

  to pull off what might be Brian's most audacious scheme yet.

• 25:13Sarah Hagi?

  It's a Friday night in late 2012 at the Castle Pub in North London, about a mile away from Hatton Garden. In the back corner, four elderly men are catching up over pints and fish and chips. But they're not having the kind of conversation you might expect from a group of aging pub goers. They've been invited here by Brian to discuss the heist that could give them the retirement they think they deserve. Terry Perkins sips his beer and smiles. Like most of his friends, his thin hair has gone fully white. He spent his youth doing this kind of thing, sitting around with fellow criminals and planning high-profile crimes. But then, on his 35th birthday,

• 25:55Sarah Hagi?

  Terry helped carry out one of Britain's biggest heists, during which he doused a bank employee in gasoline and shook matches in his face.

• 26:05Scaachi Koul?

  Okay, so this is the event from earlier where he douses someone in gasoline and the crime goes from sexy movie heist to scary, scary crime.

• 26:14Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, exactly. I mean, it definitely was a very crazy thing to do. And at Terry's trial, the judge called him ruthless and evil and sentenced him to 22 years in prison. But he didn't serve his full sentence. He escaped from prison after 10 years and spent 17 years evading the law by moving in with his mom and living a quiet suburban life in Enfield, a town in North London. When he finally got caught earlier this year, he was sent back to prison for a few months before he was released. The courts decided he'd served enough time and was no longer a threat to society. Now, at 64 years old, Terry is finally square with the law

• 26:59Sarah Hagi?

  for a crime he committed three decades ago. So of course, he's ready to do it all over again. When Brian reached out with his idea for one last heist, Terry figured, why not? Plus, this job was big time. If they pulled it off, they'd cement themselves as legends.

• 27:20Scaachi Koul?

  That's the trailer? That's going in the trailer.

• 27:23Sarah Hagi?

  Also, like dude, you escaped prison and didn't get caught for so long and you still want to do something crazy.

• 27:30Scaachi Koul?

  Men love to push their luck. That's really what they're known for.

• 27:33Sarah Hagi?

  That's actually a really big deal to escape from prison and not get caught.

• 27:36Scaachi Koul?

  It is.

• 27:37Sarah Hagi?

  And then to not really have to go to prison again.

• 27:39Scaachi Koul?

  Well, he's here to squander it.

• 27:41Sarah Hagi?

  Oh, I wish they had a community center.

• 27:46Sarah Hagi?

  While Terry listens closely as another man at the table, Danny Jones, talks about the research he's been doing into drills. If they want to break into an underground security deposit vault protected by a 20-inch-thick concrete wall, they'll need a way to bust through it. Danny is eccentric, to say the least. He's the youngest of the bunch, a spry 57-years-old, and a fitness nut obsessed with palm-reading. He likes to wear a fez and swears he's got psychic powers. But Terry has to admit, Danny knows his stuff. He's been involved in burglaries for decades, and he's an expert on breaking and entering.

• 28:28Sarah Hagi?

  The fourth heist member is 72-year-old John Collins, who will act as the gang's lookout. John has thin, white hair, rectangular-framed glasses, and often wears a button-down shirt. He's made millions scalping sports tickets. Over the course of a few meetings like this one, a rough shape of the heist has started to form, all under Brian's direction. By the way, you know how all these cool, old-timey crime bosses had nicknames?

• 28:57Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, 100%.

• 28:58Sarah Hagi?

  Brian has one, too. Everyone calls him... Ready?

• 29:02Scaachi Koul?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:02Sarah Hagi?

  The Govna.

• 29:04Scaachi Koul?

  You know, I gotta respect how these men have really figured out...

• 29:08Sarah Hagi?

  Entertainment? They're giving us what we want. They're giving us what we want. They're British men...

• 29:12Scaachi Koul?

  Yes.

• 29:12Sarah Hagi?

  At a pub...

• 29:13Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 29:14Sarah Hagi?

  Planning the little iced-over fish and chips.

• 29:16Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, this is The Real Housewives, but for men of a certain age and of a certain demographic, for sure.

• 29:21Sarah Hagi?

  And Brian's the Govna.

• 29:23Scaachi Koul?

  He literally couldn't write it because people would laugh.

• 29:26Sarah Hagi?

  Well, the plan's starting to come together. For the next two years, the men continue to meet almost every Friday at this same pub to plan. They divide the jobs up between the four of them. Brian is responsible for planning and going into the safe. Danny will deal with the drill. John will be the lookout and getaway driver. And Terry will make sure everyone gets into and out of the building safely. A few other guys will help them out as they get closer to the heist, including a reclusive security system expert everyone just calls Basil. Then, in 2015, it's time. But when they finally make it to the diamond vaults, they'll have to try to withstand the pressure.

• 30:12Sarah Hagi?

  It's the Thursday night before Easter Weekend 2015. Brian is riding the bus into London. At 8:19 PM, the vault staff will lock up for the night ahead of the long weekend, and they won't be back until Tuesday. The first person inside is Basil, the electronics expert. He enters the building through the front door using a set of keys and disarms the alarm system. He then goes to the basement and opens a fire escape door. The team saunters into the building, lugging equipment in bags and on wheeling carts. Most of them are wearing high-vis gear, hoping to pass off as construction workers. They're all armed with walkie-talkies so they can communicate without cellphone signals

• 30:57Sarah Hagi?

  placing them at the scene. Soon, the five of them are standing in the courtyard of the building. Brian looks over at Terry, who's opening a bag filled with his insulin. He's brought three days' worth of his medication, because the job could possibly take the entire weekend.

• 31:16Scaachi Koul?

  I guess when I think about a lot of these sorts of crimes, or when you think about people stealing something like this in a very physical way, I never think of it as like a long weekend with my buddies, where I have to pack and like, prepare to be in it for days.

• 31:31Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, I know, and these are old dudes. They have medication they need to be taking. He needs his insulin. Next, they bypass a door in the courtyard with two sliding bolt locks, followed by an airlock, both of which they manage. Finally, there's only one thing standing between them and the vault: the 20-inch concrete wall. Danny Jones positions the massive, quiet, state-of-the-art drill he spent years researching on YouTube, and gets to drilling.

• 32:01Sarah Hagi?

  Two and a half hours later, they've finally done it. They've drilled a big enough opening through the wall to crawl through. Now, for the last step. Their path into the vault is blocked by a metal cabinet, so they need to knock the cabinet down with a battering ram. But as a few of the men start heaving the ram, Brian's stomach sinks. Something is wrong. The cabinet isn't falling over. They suddenly realize it's screwed to both the floor and ceiling, so they can't knock it over. And just when it can't get any worse, the tool they're using breaks.

• 32:41Scaachi Koul?

  This always happens in the movies, and I am really stressed about how our ragtag team of elderly men are gonna get out of this.

• 32:50Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's really rough because it's like they have so much time technically, but also...

• 32:56Scaachi Koul?

  None at all.

• 32:57Sarah Hagi?

  None at all, you know, just like life.

• 32:59Scaachi Koul?

  Wow.

• 33:00Sarah Hagi?

  Which has passed them by and, you know.

• 33:02Scaachi Koul?

  Okay, one thing at a time.

• 33:03Sarah Hagi?

  Well, Brian watches as the crew starts brainstorming ideas. It's already been hours and it's almost morning. Finally, someone says what no one wants to admit. If they're gonna finish the job, they have to leave and come back tomorrow. They need a beat to plot their next move and replace their broken equipment. This is too much for Brian. He spent a lifetime pulling off jobs while rarely getting caught. The idea of leaving and coming back in the middle of a job is too big a risk for him. But no one listens to him. The crew is too determined to give up now. Brian shrugs. In that case, they'll have to do it without him. He's out.

• 33:49Scaachi Koul?

  It feels like it's maybe too late for him to say that he's out, frankly.

• 33:53Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah.

• 33:54Scaachi Koul?

  I don't totally buy that he could walk away from this, even if he wants to. I think spiritually, I don't think he's gonna get to be done.

• 34:00Sarah Hagi?

  No, of course. Brian leaves the building and walks into the early morning light towards the bus station. He decided he won't be coming back, but it might be too late. His friends aren't giving up. But in their rush to finish the job they started, they just might leave behind a trail of breadcrumbs.

• 34:23Sarah Hagi?

  It's the evening of Saturday, April 4th, two days after the first heist attempt, and Terry Perkins is pulling back up for attempt number two. The boys took Friday off to plot and scheme. And this morning, a few of the crew members went to a store called Machine Mart to replace their broken equipment. Now, they repeat the same steps as the other night. Dressed in high-vis gear, they bring their equipment into the building in wheelie bins. Another member of the heist has followed Brian's lead and quit. But as far as Terry's concerned, they're both missing out, and he's excited to prove Brian wrong.

• 35:02Sarah Hagi?

  At long last, the crew knocks the cabinet down. And finally, the path is clear. They can now enter the vault through a 10 by 18 inch hole in the wall. Tech expert Basil and palm reader Danny managed to squeeze into the hole and wiggle their way into the vault. We actually have a picture of the hole they drilled. Sachi, can you describe it?

• 35:25Scaachi Koul?

  It's so big. I guess I didn't think about how big it would be. Obviously, it has to fit like an adult man through it, but it's huge. And also, the thickness of the concrete that they had to dig through.

• 35:36Sarah Hagi?

  It's so crazy.

• 35:37Scaachi Koul?

  It is cartoonish. I can't understand even how they did it.

• 35:42Sarah Hagi?

  In my mind, I was picturing kind of like a wrecking ball type of like...

• 35:46Scaachi Koul?

  Like a Looney Tunes.

• 35:47Sarah Hagi?

  It looks like someone just like sliced through the wall, basically.

• 35:50Scaachi Koul?

  It looks like someone took a bite out of it.

• 35:52Sarah Hagi?

  It's crazy what is possible with friends, you know? Well, the next step is to smash the security deposit boxes with sledgehammers and stuff their contents into bags, which will pass through the wall to Terry. As Terry grabs bags full of cash, diamonds, gold, and other precious jewels, he wishes he could take a selfie to rub it in Brian's face. The whole crew was proud that they defied the expectations of those who jumped ship. But with almost half of their crew missing, they're not able to steal nearly as much as they wanted to. They had hoped to empty nearly 1,000 boxes, but in the end, only managed to open 73.

• 36:35Sarah Hagi?

  Finally, at around 6 a.m. on Easter Sunday, the crew is done. They leave their power tools and the mess of empty deposit boxes behind. The men emerge from the building, wheeling a bin full of loot, and it's so heavy that Terry has to stop and catch his breath multiple times. The three thieves hop into John's car, and he gives them all a ride home. As Terry walks into his house with a bag full of golden jewels, he feels good, if a little winded. He's proud of himself for following through despite the obstacles. But when the crew pivoted from their carefully laid plans, they got a little sloppy. And though Terry doesn't know it yet, the very car that just dropped him off

• 37:19Sarah Hagi?

  will soon point investigators straight to their door.

• 37:28Speaker 11

  Ghosts aren't real. At least, that's what journalist Tristan Redmond always believed. Sure, odd things happen in his childhood bedroom, but ultimately, he shrugged them off. Until he discovered that he wasn't alone, that everyone who lived there after him also had bizarre experiences they couldn't explain. And it gets even weirder. It just so happens that his wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door. Is this ghost somehow connected to her murder? He decides to go where no son-in-law should, digging up a cold case and asking questions that nobody wants answered. Like, could his wife's great-grandfather have gotten away with the perfect crime? This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence, and the things

• 38:12Speaker 11

  that come back to haunt us. For the best bingeable series like Ghost Story, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can get all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 38:28Speaker 12

  Hey, I'm Cassie DePecce, the host of Against the Odds from Audible Originals. In each episode, we share thrilling true stories of survival, putting you in the shoes of the people who lived to tell the tale. In our latest series, we track the story of Hugh Glass, the real-life revenant that inspired the 2015 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 1823, Glass was brutally mauled by a grizzly bear in present-day South Dakota and left for dead. His survival depended on trekking through 350 miles of wilderness alone with grave injuries. But he was driven by his thirst for revenge. Follow Against the Odds wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Against the Odds early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 39:21Sarah Hagi?

  It's the Tuesday after Easter in London. The four-day weekend is done, and Calvin Stockwell, the head of security at the Hatton Gardens Safety Deposit Vault, is heading into work. He's a bald elderly man with wired glasses and a long face. Calvin has had this job for 20 years. But as soon as he walks in, he knows today will be different because one of his coworkers immediately runs up and says, "We've been robbed." Calvin feels sick. On Thursday night, he actually got called into work. The security alarm had gone off briefly, and he was asked to make sure everything was OK. So he showed up to the building and looked through the windows. From the street,

• 40:05Sarah Hagi?

  everything looked fine. There was no sign of anyone inside. Calvin had been told to wait for police to show up to investigate the incident. For his own safety, he's not allowed to enter the building without backup. Here's how he explains it in a BBC interview the year after the heist.

• 40:22Speaker 13

  I could have walked in. I don't know what would have happened to me. I could have got clumped across the head or got tied up, whatever. So that's why the policy was you don't go in on your own.

• 40:34Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, that makes sense. I probably wouldn't go in sight unseen either. Also, like, that's not my stuff. I'm not going to risk my life for other people's stuff.

• 40:43Scaachi Koul?

  For somebody else's things? Pass.

• 40:45Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah. But the police never showed up. They assumed it was a false alarm. So Calvin went home. Now, as Calvin descends into the basement, it's clear that this was very much not a false alarm. Whoever pulled this off disabled the security system, but they didn't do a good job, and a signal was still sent out. If the police hadn't ignored it, they would have caught the thieves red-handed as they drilled through the concrete wall. Kelvin calls the police and they actually show up this time. They descend into the vault together and that's when they see the disaster they'd ignored over the weekend. As investigators start looking through the crime scene, they say that despite the mess,

• 41:30Sarah Hagi?

  it's meticulous. There's not a single fingerprint or piece of DNA left behind. As the story makes headlines, people start calling it "the perfect crime." But Kelvin knows that thieves made at least one mistake by failing to properly disable the alarm. Now, he's hopeful the police will uncover others. Soon, investigators will start unraveling the threads that the burglars left behind. And when they turn to CCTV footage, all signs will point straight to our aging crew members.

• 42:06Sarah Hagi?

  It's late May 2015, almost two months after the heist. Brian is having a quiet morning in the home he shares with his adult son. Though Brian left his heist mates in the lurch, everyone's forgiven him and allowed him back into the fold. After all, while he might have buckled in the heat of the moment, he's still the guvna and the reason the heist happened in the first place. The crew is back to regular Friday night pints at the Castle Pub, and now they're on to the next phase of their crime, figuring out how to liquidate the gold and jewels they stole into untraceable cash. Brian and his friends have enjoyed watching the police and journalists puzzle over who could have carried out such a sophisticated heist.

• 42:50Sarah Hagi?

  British tabloid culture hasn't really changed since the 80s, and people are all over the details of this robbery. The story has become a national sensation, with much of the British public actually rooting for the burglars and antagonizing the police for ignoring the burglar alarm.

• 43:09Sarah Hagi?

  Brian's main concern now is planning how he'll spend his new retirement fund. His health has taken a turn for the worst. He's been diagnosed with cancer and is eager to live out his last years without having to worry about work or money. Suddenly, there's a banging at the door. A loud voice announces that it's the police. Brian's dreams of retirement vanish as he walks to the door. The police barge in and arrest him, and Brian knows that, across the city, his friends are probably getting the exact same unpleasant house visits. But to his surprise, the police aren't done. They also arrest his 51-year-old son, Paul.

• 43:52Scaachi Koul?

  This guy really ties his family into these little crimes of his, doesn't he? He can't help but implicate the people around him, which is the biggest tragedy, feels like.

• 44:01Sarah Hagi?

  I mean, I would assume his son was involved if I was investigating this.

• 44:05Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 44:05Sarah Hagi?

  You know? Over the past two months, police have followed a series of clues that have led them there. After the group split off, the remaining burglars had to use John's car to get home instead of the untraceable van they were supposed to use, and CCTV footage caught his license plate. And while they were all careful to use walkie-talkies during the heist itself, they talked on their cellphones before and after. That's actually why they're arresting Brian's son. Since Brian doesn't own a cellphone, he's been borrowing Paul's, leading the police to believe he was involved, which might actually be the most classically boomer detail in this whole heist.

• 44:46Sarah Hagi?

  Brian could crack safes, but he couldn't navigate a smartphone without a bit of help from his kid. Luckily, the charges against Paul are quickly dropped.

• 44:57Scaachi Koul?

  This is something my dad would do. I feel like he would hand me his phone and be like, "I can't figure out this app." And then, next minute, I know I'm being arrested for some weird scam.

• 45:05Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, and you know what? The detail of them having the walkie-talkies to me was so much smarter than many of the criminals we cover, that I'm so shocked that they made these little tiny mistakes, which must be the worst part of all this.

• 45:19Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 45:19Sarah Hagi?

  Just two things that had to be different for them to not get caught at all.

• 45:23Scaachi Koul?

  So close to getting away with it.

• 45:25Sarah Hagi?

  And also, over the past few weeks, unbeknownst to them, the heist crew's been under surveillance by undercover cops, who've been watching and filming their every move. Most damningly, they film Brian, Terry and Danny drinking at the Castle Pub, and they listen in as Terry excitedly describes the parts of the heist Brian missed. We actually have a short clip of some of the footage they caught. Sachi, could you please tell us what happens?

• 45:53Scaachi Koul?

  Classic London. Three old white men, wearing their little jackets and their button-up shirts, sitting at the pub. And one of them is wildly gesticulating, as if he is the drill, showing them how they broke in.

• 46:07Sarah Hagi?

  This is so endearing, it's crazy.

• 46:09Scaachi Koul?

  Very charming, extremely cute, unfortunately.

• 46:12Sarah Hagi?

  It's truly like, oh yeah, this is one of my friend's dads. They're literally just old guys.

• 46:17Scaachi Koul?

  They're just old guys talking about the thing that they love, which is drills.

• 46:20Sarah Hagi?

  Oh, well, Terry, Danny and Kenny are at Terry's daughter's house when the police launch their raid. Unfortunately for the thieves, they catch the three men in a damning act, melting several million dollars' worth of gold they stole. When the police raid the other burglars' houses, they find Brian's many books on the diamond market and a copy of Forensics for Dummies that Danny was apparently studying very closely. After the thieves are brought in, they all try to play dumb and pretend to not know each other. But when they're shown the mounting evidence against them, they give up the fight. When heist member John Collins is asked if he wants bail,

• 47:02Sarah Hagi?

  he just shrugs and says, "I'd rather have a cup of tea." After a long criminal career, Brian and his friends have been nabbed again, this time for good.

• 47:16Sarah Hagi?

  After the thieves are arrested in early 2015, their identities are revealed, and the British public becomes even more obsessed with them than before. The nonviolent and borderline silly nature of the crime, and the fact that the suspects have an average age of 63, makes people feel affectionately towards the heist crew. They're given a variety of nicknames by the newspapers and tabloids: Diamond Old Geezers, Diamond Wheezers, and Dad's Army, to name a few.

• 47:47Sarah Hagi?

  In 2016, due to the sheer volume of evidence against them, our four core heisters, Brian, Terry, John, and Danny, all plead guilty. Brian is sentenced to six years, while the rest of his conspirators get seven. Brian gets less time due to his worsening health. He suffered a stroke while in custody. In 2018, Brian is released from jail after serving just a third of his sentence, and he's left to tend to his failing health at home. He dies in 2024 at the age of 84. In the many obituaries that follow, the press call him "the last gentleman criminal",

• 48:29Sarah Hagi?

  the poster child for a bygone era of British heists and generally nonviolent organized crime. The Diamond Wheezers are remembered as some of the most beloved and bizarre criminals in British history. And someone even hung an unofficial heritage plaque, the classic blue sign to note British places of importance, on their old corner booth of the Castle pub. Though Brian Reader spent his life trying to stay away from crime, it was ultimately his calling. Maybe it was just what he was meant to do. And if nothing else, while he and his friends may have gotten caught, they got to enjoy a few pints and end their final act with a bang.

• 49:14Sarah Hagi?

  Sachi, you know, this is one of those episodes where people who think we're too critical of white men can easily listen and know, if you are doing it right, we're on your side.

• 49:25Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Listen, there are lots of things white men do that I abide by. They just don't do them that often.

• 49:32Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, and this is one of those things where you're like, okay, this was ultimately kind of awesome.

• 49:37Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, great crime, virtually victimless, almost, not quite.

• 49:42Sarah Hagi?

  But there's one person who is definitely shaken up by the threat of being burned alive. I don't abide by that one. And also, all their children and their families.

• 49:51Scaachi Koul?

  But the crime is very cool and very well done. And I'm sorry, I just think they should have gotten away with it.

• 49:58Sarah Hagi?

  I think they should have been like, you know what? These old men are working so hard to defy expectations, to defy ageism. And, you know, it is the police's fault. They could have caught them in the act and they decided to not go and check. So in my mind, I'm kind of like, you know, that's their fault.

• 50:17Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, this is actually a story about ageism. All these people underestimated these old men, didn't think they could do it, and they did it.

• 50:25Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, and it's kind of like Doris Payne, right? She's an elderly woman, black woman, who stole for her entire life, doing little cat burglar-type things. She also used her age and race to her advantage in a way that people were not suspecting her of certain things. And these guys were so smart.

• 50:45Scaachi Koul?

  I think we have learned that there are lots of things we can use to our advantage if other people don't see us clearly because we are older or younger, or black or white, or whatever it is.

• 50:57Sarah Hagi?

  To me, I'm also like, you didn't have to do this at all. You did it for the love of the game. They love the puzzles, they love the camaraderie. They had something to gather around at the pub every Friday night for this. You know what I mean? Like, men don't talk to each other, they need something. Sachi, do you think they did this because they needed an excuse to hang out and be around each other? Or because they had, like, demons they were fighting and needed to go to therapy?

• 51:20Scaachi Koul?

  I mean, I think both is probably true. I think most men could benefit from some talk therapy. But I do think these guys just really needed community and maybe didn't know how to do it. And so this is like a way to do that.

• 51:32Sarah Hagi?

  Yes.

• 51:33Scaachi Koul?

  These guys just wanted to, like, bully around each other at the pub, but there wasn't a reason to do that. And they needed a project and nobody told them to just, like, go make boats in little bottles or something.

• 51:43Sarah Hagi?

  Yep. Maybe the lesson today is for men. Hey, guys, join a rec league. Make friends with somebody in your neighborhood. Talk to a stranger.

• 51:51Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 51:52Sarah Hagi?

  If you don't want to deal with your inner demons, you can do crime, but it has to be a cool crime.

• 51:57Scaachi Koul?

  It has to be a cool crime. It has to be, you know, something that there's clearly, like, you know, you're a bit of a Robin, who knows what they're gonna do to you?

• 52:03Sarah Hagi?

  I bet they were gonna keep it. If you're gonna do a heist, listen, I don't want you a part of it, but give me some of the spoils. Why not?

• 52:11Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, come on, redistribute these funds.

• 52:12Sarah Hagi?

  One day, it will work.

• 52:28Scaachi Koul?

  Follow Scamfluencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free by joining Audible.

• 52:49Sarah Hagi?

  This is Brian Reader and the Diamond Weasers, The Geriatric Jewel Thieves. I'm Sarah Haggy.

• 52:55Scaachi Koul?

  And I'm Sachi Cole. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at [email protected]. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were The Last Job: Bad Grandpas and the Hatton Garden Heist by Dan Belewski, Hatton Garden Heist: How an Old School Working Class Criminal's Swan Song Came Together by Vikram Dodd for The Guardian, How a Ragtag Gang of Retirees Pulled Off the Biggest Jewel Heist in British History by Mark Seal for Vanity Fair, and One Last Job: The Inside Story of the Hatton Garden Heist by Duncan Campbell for The Guardian.

• 53:28Sarah Hagi?

  Gabrielle Drolle wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Haggy. Olivia Bryle is our story editor. Fact checking by Meredith Clark. Sound design by James Morgan. Additional audio assistance provided by Augustine Lim. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Fries on Sync. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Our senior managing producer is Callum Flues. Janine Cornolo and Stephanie Jens are our development producers. Our associate producer is Charlotte Miller. Our producer is Julia McGruder. Our senior producers are Sarah Enni and Ginny Bloom. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, Marshall Louie and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.

• 54:20Speaker 14

  There are books that change how you see the world, and there are books that change how you see yourself. In a new podcast series, A Great Book with Barack Obama, President Obama sits down with a series of surprising and sharp guests to explore six books that have shaped his life and perspective on the world. From Song of Solomon and The Fire Next Time, to All the Pretty Horses and Gilead, the president is joined by guests like Tom Hanks and Ta-Nehisi Coates to reflect on how these timeless stories shaped his thinking on everything from fatherhood to leadership, and discover together what they tell us about the world we live in and the world we want to create. Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes

• 55:05Speaker 14

  of A Great Book with Barack Obama ad-free right now, plus access each audiobook discussed in the series. Download the Audible app today.